Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“ U ncle Brooks?” There was a tapping at his bedroom door. “I need help.”
He sat up, half dazed. It had been a long night, between the trick or treating and the cold and the bonfires and the beer and candy and…
It had been fun, but damn. Those cowboys could party.
“Come on in. I’m decent.”
Lucy opened his door and peeked in. “Uncle Brooks, I messed up bad.”
“What’s wrong, girl?” What time was it? How could she have possibly messed up already? Shit.
“I’m trying to make Uncle Coop’s birthday cake. It’s his birthday today, and none of us got him anything. I was trying to make him a cake, but it won’t work. It’s all ugly. I want to surprise him so bad.”
Well, damn it. He had forgotten, and the man sure hadn’t mentioned it again. “Okay, no problem. Go downstairs, I’ll be right there.”
“I’m sorry to wake you up, I know it’s really early, but I wanted to do something before he woke up.” She was fighting her tears for all she was worth, Brooks could hear it in her voice.
“You’re a good girl. I tell you what, we’ll get him a gift certificate to Amazon. How’s that?”
“Oh…” She took a shaky breath. “He’d like that very much. I’ll work to pay back for my part of it. I’m not asking for nothing, I just?—”
“Hey. We’re family. You don’t have to pay me back. This is our gift to Uncle Coop, right?”
He needed to talk to Coop about getting these kids some pin money, just a little for silly shit. They were supposed to have a meeting today anyway. They needed to reckon those sorts of things together.
Lucy went downstairs, and he got dressed real quick, checking the clock. Lord have mercy, it was seven thirty. That meant if she’d already wrecked a cake, she must have been up early.
She was a sweetheart, but honestly? When it came right down to it, they were all good kids.
Even the bundle of hormones who had been aggravated as all get-out his brother was interfering with his ability to get Halloween nookie.
It had been damn good to get Benji out of the house, though.
The difference in attitude and energy had been amazing, and Brooks had loved seeing that boy light up when the other cowboys had greeted him.
Before the night had gotten started, they were all sharing their no-shit-there-I-was stories and welcoming Benji into their circle.
That had been a great call on Coop’s part.
He put on another sweatshirt because, shit, it was cold. Then he stomped into his house shoes. When he got horses he was going to be out in the early morning doing the feeding, but right now, except for the dogs, he didn’t have much to feed .
He’d have horses soon enough though, he thought.
If they were going to co-parent these babies when Benji left, there were going to have to be horses.
He headed down his two flights of stairs, mind on the barns, which were in increasingly good shape.
The cake was a wreck.
It had fallen.
It was burned up a bit on the outside and raw in the middle.
Damn.
“I think maybe we have to start over.”
Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry. I tried. Uncle Coop said I couldn’t make myself coffee, and I’m so tired…”
“Thirteen is too young for coffee.” It was awful young to try to make a cake first thing in the morning.
“How about you have a glass of chocolate milk? Or we could have cocoa, and then we’ll make it another cake, okay?”
“You’ll make hot chocolate?”
“Of course, no problem.” He’d do damn near anything for this eager child. “Can you pull out some eggs, the milk, and the butter. We’ll make something up. Do you know what Uncle Coop’s favorite is?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve never seen him eat cake, but you have to have a birthday cake, don’t you?”
Dammit. “Well, what have you seen him eat? What is his favorite dessert? Favorite treat?”
Her head tilted. “You mean like chocolate chip cookies? He loves chocolate chip cookies.”
Oh, that was excellent. They could so do that. He knew that there was a big bag of chocolate chips. Coop snuck them in his coffee. “Wanna make a giant chocolate chip cookie?”
She nodded, and her eyes lit up. “You won’t tell about the cake?”
“It’s our secret. No worries, huh? ”
That earned him a happy little grin. “No worries.”
“Cool.” He grabbed the milk, then the flat disc of Mexican chocolate to melt into it. He loved that he didn’t have to use powdered. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Pot. Milk. Heat.
Okay, now they needed to soften the butter. “Is the oven still on, kiddo?”
“Uh-huh. I was hoping you would help me.”
“Well, sure. Now, do we have a pizza pan with a lip?”
“Yes! Uncle Coop uses it for his Bisquick breakfast pizza.”
He grinned at her. “I have yet to experience this.”
“It’s pretty yummy.” She ducked down and grabbed a pan out of one of those narrow cabinets that housed cookie sheets. “Ta-da!”
“That’s perfect.” He put the butter on the back of the stove, then stirred the milk. “Does Uncle Coop like nuts in his cookies?”
“Pecans. Walnuts break his mouth out.”
Good to know. “Can you break some into pieces?”
She dug out a jar. “Uncle Coop keeps some chopped, because he likes them in oatmeal.”
“Even better. Then you can break some eggs for me.”
“Okay!”
She was such an amazing kid. She really was. He stirred some more, and when bubbles formed around the edges of the milk, he put in the chocolate.
“Uncle Brooks?”
“Mmm?”
“Do you like horses?”
“Yes.” He chuckled, because that was such a weak word for it. “I love them.”
“Are you going to get horses?”
“Well, I need to talk to your Uncle Coop about that, but I would like to. ”
“I like horses,” she said. “Sometimes Mr. Kase lets me ride at the ranch.”
“Are you good at it?” He could see her on a horse. She was the 4-H kid after all.
“I like to. I think I’m getting better all the time.”
“Well, maybe we can talk to Mr. Kase about letting me come with you sometime soon. Check out your skills.”
“I would like that.” She beamed at him. “Very much.”
So that was the way to this girl’s heart. Horses. “Me too. Okay, now we cream the softened butter together with the eggs and sugar.” He knew this recipe to his bones. He’d memorized it in both metric and imperial measurements so he could make them anywhere…
God, he was a geek.
“Okay. I can do that with the spoon, right?”
“It will give you a muscle, for sure.” He handed her the wooden spoon. But the butter had softened up nice sitting on the oven.
He let her take the wooden spoon while he dug out the crock pot to put the hot chocolate in to keep it warm and yummy. Then he helped Lucy mix up the cookie dough, so they could scoop the batter and put it in the pizza pan.
Coop came out of his side of the house about the time the big cookie came out of the oven. “Hey, what smells so good?”
“Uncle Brooks made hot chocolate! And we made you a big cookie!” She ran to him, squeezing him tight. “Happy birthday, Uncle Coop!”
“Thank you, sweet girl.” Coop peered at the chocolate chip cookie. “Is that breakfast?”
“God, no,” Brooks told him. “I’ll make you something else for that. What’s your favorite?”
Coop grinned, pouring a cup of coffee, which Brooks had also put on. “Can you make eggs benedict?”
“Yes. I make an empowering hollandaise. ”
“Seriously?” Coop blinked. “You are a marvel, aren’t you?”
“That’s me. Culinary superhero.” He grinned wide.
“Uncle Brooks wants to go riding with me.” Lucy bounced. “Do you think Uncle Kase will let him?”
“I bet I could text Kase right now, and he would be fine with it.”
“I bet he would.” Brooks washed up some dishes, then started on breakfast, making sure they had English muffins. If not, he’d make biscuits.
“They’re in the freezer.” Coop grinned and winked at him. “You’re gonna go riding today, huh, girl?”
“I just wanted to show him how I did. Do you think we ought to get horses?”
Oh, he did want to hear the answer to this one.
Coop shrugged, as casual as anything. “That’s up to your uncle, sweetheart, to decide when we’ll get horses. He’s the one who’s been working in the barn, and he’ll know when it’s safe.”
Brooks stopped and blinked, shocked as all get-out. “You’re waiting on me?”
“Sure, it’s your thing. My focus is on rebuilding that one room to be an office, and I wanna make that weird little room that was supposed to be a second family room into a media room.”
Lucy bounced up on her toes and clapped. “I think that’s going to be so cool—fancy chairs and everything. We’re going to have a projector…”
She kept rattling on, but Brooks was focused on those so-casual words.
That’s up to your uncle.
There was a lot in those words, because they assumed things that Coop intended him to stay. That they were, at least for a while, throwing in together. He had to think about that for a bit, because they were supposed to meet this afternoon, work out a schedule.
“…looking into those soda machine things and, sweetie, they take a lot of work but they could also draw bugs.”
“Who’s drawing bugs?” Johnny came wandering down and immediately crawled up into Coop’s lap, snuggling in. It was hard to remember sometimes how that smart little kid was just a baby. “Morning.”
“Morning, sweetheart, how you doing?”
“Good. Good morning, Uncle Brooks. Thank you for last night; I got tired. I guess. I don’t even remember coming home.
” Little Johnny had crashed, falling asleep right in his arms, and Brooks had brought him home.
He’d left Coop there with the kids who weren’t staying over at the Chiaras with his blessing to go back and have another couple beers.
That reminded him. “I got a ride back over here last night. I didn’t feel like I should be driving. I need to get someone to run me over to get my truck later.”
“No problem. We’ll go over to go riding anyway, right?”
“Yeah, I appreciate you letting me have the time to go hang out.”
Coop waved one hand, winked, even as Johnny asked, “What are you riding?”